Siemens aims for more smart building and infrastructure deals in the UAE

Siemens aims to sign more agreements in the UAE in areas such as smart buildings, electrification and power grids, according to a top executive.

“We are very active in all three areas [in the UAE] and [there are a] a lot of digital building projects particularly in the big cities. High-rise buildings are a perfect focus for that,” Thomas Kiessling, chief technology officer at Siemens Smart Infrastructure, told The National in Helsinki.

Siemens Smart Infrastructure, which is based in Switzerland, will focus on medium and low-voltage electrification as well as electric vehicle charging in the Emirates, Mr Kiessling said.

Last year, the company signed an agreement with the UAE’s Ministry of Energy and Audi to build a nationwide network of EV chargers.

Siemens is expected to set up 10 ultra-fast chargers on the motorways in Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah.

The UAE, the Arab world’s second-largest economy, is among the world's top 10 countries as a market that is geared towards electric mobility, according to Arthur D Little.

Meanwhile, global electric car sales are set to surge by 35 per cent this year, helped by government subsidies and the tightening of carbon dioxide emissions standards, the International Energy Agency said in a report last month.

Battery manufacturing projects announced globally would be sufficient to meet the demand for EVs until 2030 under the agency's net-zero emissions by 2050 scenario, the report said.

“We think that the ambitious targets that you would see in some of the states in the US, in particular California, and the EU [as well as] China … will get us there,” Mr Kiessling said.

“We are probably well on the way to solve the problem in transport. We are in full execution.”

Despite the increasing global adoption of EVs, concerns remain among companies and industry participants regarding high mineral costs, supply chain disruptions and the concentration of manufacturing in a few countries.

“I really believe in the forces of the market. Solar panels were concentrated in China until recently, then we had a whole crunch of supply during Covid-19 and now … the supply elasticity of solar panels has improved and you can source them from all kinds of countries in South-East Asia,” said Mr Kiessling.

Barring a few areas, global supply chain issues have eased, the Siemens executive said.

Supply chain disruptions, which started during the Covid-19 pandemic, were amplified by frequent lockdowns in China, the world's manufacturing hub, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year.

A shortage of transformers and electrical switch gear has resulted in widespread project delays and cancellations.

“We were at like a 12 month-lead time for electrification switch gear in the medium voltage area. This has gone down a little bit now,” said Mr Kiessling.

“There are many projects in the backlog which are hard to implement, but the [situation] will improve because it sends the right signals to the market … it’s not hard to build a switch gear factory.”